Nick Offerman Shows Off His Pizza Farm in Hilarious Ad for Healthy School Lunches

It’s easy to give kids healthy, farm-fresh snacks like pizza, taquitos and fish sticks. Just grab them straight from the vine at Nick Offerman’s pizza farm.

The actor gives you a tour of the agricultural marvel in this amusing video from Funny or Die. Those sloppy joes, in particular, look earthy and crunchy—literally so.

The whole thing, of course, is a parody. It’s aimed at getting the public to pressure Congress to reauthorize the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, which set strong nutrition standards for schools and after decades of meals loaded with sugar, fat and salt.

#MakeAChildCry Ads Remind Shocked Commuters That Sometimes Pain Means Love

For the past two weeks, metro and subway riders throughout Western Europe looked up from their phones to find enormous close-up posters of toddlers whose expressions can only be described with words the Bible used for newbies to hell: There is much weeping and gnashing of teeth. These images are explained with little more than a hashtag: #MakeAChildCry.

Created by DDB Paris for Doctors of the World, the campaign aims to raise funds for pediatric medical supplies for developing countries. Over 4 million kids a year die of diseases that could be avoided. The creative stems from a simple truth that many parents cringe to consider: Sometimes inducing your child to tears is proof of love.

In phase two, follow-up ads will pull away from the children’s faces to reveal more context (like a needle closing in), coupled with the words: “Make a child cry. Save his/her life.”

We’re on board with the idea that proper parenting is not about tiptoeing around pain or fear; sometimes it’s about facing it head-on for a long-term benefit that children can’t immediately understand.

The teaser phase, which has lasted two weeks so far, is uncondescending and simple: To understand what it’s all about, surprised commuters must remember the hashtag and look it up. It’s like a call to research before raging—an idea that’s especially compelling in the context of the anti-vaxxers movement (which has now crossed the Atlantic! Good job, celebrities!).

Whatever side of that conversation you’re on, this subject is so sensitive that many people will scream out of their necks without considering, or researching, what those other, crazy parents are trying to say. (It turns out many anti-vaxxers are middle-class professionals who don’t consider themselves anti-science. They think vaccinations should be researched more closely before being fast-tracked into the mainstream—which is a fair point, especially if you scaled it beyond pediatric medicine to, say, TSA body-scans. I’ll also seize the moment to say I’m pro-vaccination, was thrilled to never have rubella or polio, and practically peed myself with glee when I heard chicken pox was finally avoidable.

You can find the #MakeAChildCry campaign in Germany, Argentina, Canada, Spain, Greece, the Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland and the U.K.. It’s supported by TV, print and outdoor.
 

 

Anyone else seen this vaccinatio campaign in the metro ? Kinda funny #makeachildcry #imevil

A photo posted by Roxanne Varza (@rvarza) on Jul 7, 2015 at 2:50am PDT

 
CREDITS

Client: Doctors of the World
Account Directors: Luc Evrard, Alexandre Jalbert, Justine Roche
Agency: DDB Paris
Executive Creative Director: Alexander Kalchev
Creatives: Gautier Fage, Sébastien Henras, Julien Bon, Benoit Oulhen
TV Producer & Achat d’Art: Marine Rolland
Sound: Studio 5
Digital Producer: Alice Kraft
Account Management: Matthieu de Lesseux, Marine Hakim, Sophie Colus
PR: Anne-Marie Gibert
Director – Photograph: Achim Lippoth
Production: Magali Films

Darkly Comic Ads for ZocDoc Illustrate the Utter Hell of Calling Your Doctor

ZocDoc knows how much it sucks trying to deal with doctors over the phone. Now, the online medical-care scheduling service positions itself as the cure for such headaches in a pair of humorous spots from Goodby Silverstein & Partners in New York.

In one ad, an office worker whispers her embarrassing symptoms  into a handset at her desk, hoping not to be overheard by her colleagues. The other commercial presents a different woman, seeking an appointment ASAP, who might be overstating her condition ever so slightly.

“Get better better” is the tagline. The campaign also includes radio, print, out-of-home and digital elements. It’s the first major ad push for the 7-year-old service, and it follows Richard Fine’s arrival as marketing chief as the year began.

“We’re all at the mercy of a broken healthcare system in which many of us can relate to an experience that is absurd and Kafka-esque,” he tells Fast Company.

“Our campaign finds humor in that shared experience. It makes light of these unnecessarily painful parts of the healthcare system. Technology has changed every part of our lives. How about—finally—healthcare?”

The campaign reunites Fine with Goodby’s Nathan Frank, who serves as creative director. In 2008, the pair co-founded OTC drug company Help Remedies, which is known for its own crazy ads. David Shane directed the ZocDoc commercials.

Shane’s expert comic touch—he directed HBO Go’s “Awkward Family Viewing” ads, and won an Emmy a few years back for Bud Light’s “Swear Jar”—is just what the doctor ordered. Here, his approach is appealingly offbeat, but also upbeat and empowering. That’s probably the perfect prescription for a healthcare platform reaching out in ads for the first time.



Empty Wheelchair Chases People Around a Mall in One of the Meanest Ad Pranks Yet

Hand out fliers about the dangers of osteoporosis pretty much anywhere and see what happens. Crumple. Toss. No one reads all those statistics. But chase those same folks with a remote-controlled wheelchair? Now you have yourself a public service campaign.

Never mind that it could spike some heart rates—why is that contraption following me?—it’s for the greater good.

The prank-style awareness campaign, from FCB Health for Crouse Hospital in Syracuse, N.Y., shares some fairly alarming data: About 54 million Americans have osteoporosis or low bone density, and one in two women over age 50 will break a bone due to osteoporosis. Recovery can be brutal, or nonexistent—hence the wheelchair as the central prop.

With slightly more ominous background music, “Beware the Chair” could double as an ad for a horror flick. (Put a creepy baby in it, and you have a Thinkmodo production.) Initial reaction seems to be pretty strong, judging from the video. Or maybe those people were already trembling?

The work will get print, outdoor and heavy social media distribution via Crouse Hospital’s Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. FCB is also offering it free to hospitals and health care groups across the country.



Grey Treats Iodine Deficiency Through the Decorative Dots on Indian Women's Foreheads

Iodine deficiency is a huge issue in rural India, and here’s one unusual way to help solve the problem—iodized bindis.

The Neelvasant Medical Foundation and Research Center, a non-profit group based in India, worked with ad agency Grey to create and distribute the medically enhanced versions of the decorative dots that women in India commonly wear on their foreheads.

Named the “Life Saving Dot,” the product has slight shades of sci-fi, with recipients soaking up their daily dose of the nutrient through their skin (though it also seems similar in concept to, say, a nicotine patch).

The nonprofit and agency cite breast cancer, fibrocystic breast disease and complications during pregnancy among the health issues linked to iodine deficiency (an insidious form of malnutrition that has historically been associated with goiter and cretinism, but in recent decades has been tied to a broader set of physical and mental problems).

With help from Talwar Bindi, the iodized dots have been distributed in four areas, so far—Badli, a village near New Delhi, and three parts of the Maharastra state: Niphal, Peth and Kopergaon/Sinnar.

Sure, it might not be as classic a solution as dispensing iodized salt, but it’s definitely more colorful … and if it works, who cares?

CREDITS
Grey Group Singapore
Chief Creative Officer: Ali Shabaz
Copywriter: Ali Shabaz / Karn Singh
Art Director: Cinzia Crociani / Sudhir Pasumarty / Sandeep Bhardwaj / Giap How Tan
Designer: Cinzia Crociani / Sudhir Pasumarty / Sandeep Bhardwaj
Illustrator: Sudhir Pasumarty
Project Manager: Sandeep Bhardwaj
Account Director: Gaurav Arora
Account Manager: Marie Tan
Regional Director, PR & Corporate Communications: Huma Qureshi
Regional Corporate Communications Executive: Yanrong Pang

Greyworks
Producer: Jacinta Loo
Editor: Timothy Lee
Editor: Bobby Aguila
Sound Designer / Composer: Marco Iodice

Director: Giovanni Fantoni Modena
DOP: Matte Chi
Production House: Hfilms Milan



Ads Urge British Women to Get Out and Exercise in All Their Jiggly, Sweaty Glory

Exercise is hard enough already without your arm fat flapping like a chicken wing to discourage you. But if we could learn to stop worrying and love the sweaty slap of our chubby thighs, we might never think twice about hitting the gym or the field.

At least, that’s the premise of Britain’s “This Girl Can” campaign. The wiggling, jiggling, sweaty anthem is getting press and shares for its honest depiction of what average women working out look like—so that women of all shapes and sizes will feel better stepping up the plate or the Zumba stick.

A bit clumsily cut to Missy Eliott’s “Get Ur Freak On” and having some of the worst typographic design you’ve seen in ages, the video has nonetheless racked up millions of views on Facebook and YouTube due to its inspiring, anthemic nature.

Sport England (a British government department previously known as the English Sports Council) funded the effort and did the research that found a serious gender gap in exercise. Some 2 million fewer women than men in the 14-40 age range regularly participate in sports. They tried to figure out why.

Was it because our ladyparts make it harder to lift weights? Nope. In other European countries, there’s no such gap. What was holding England’s women back?

Digging further, they found that body image issues were the main issue. This campaign is meant to be the solution—a website, a YouTube channel and an inspirational film series that celebrates the wiggling, jiggling and sweating that comes along with being a healthy active woman at any size.

It might encourage you to get out on the field. At the very least, it will fill your girl power needs until another anthemic video comes along next week.

CREDITS
Agency: FCB Inferno
Managing Director: Sharon Jiggins
Creative Director: Bryn Attewell
Art Director: Raymond Chan
Copywriter: Simon Cenamor
Planning Director: Vicki Holgate
Senior Account Director: Hollie Loxley
Producer: Ally Mee
Media Company: Carat
Production Company : Somesuch
Exec. Producer: Tim Nash
Director: Kim Gehrig
DP: David Procter
Producer: Lee Groombridge
Editor: Tom Lindsay at Trim
Post-production Producers: Andrew McLintock and Adam Sergant
Post-production: Framestore
Audio post-production: Wave Sound Studios
Music Company/Sound Design: Soundtree



Photograph These Ingenious Ads, and You'll Learn How to Save Kids From Eye Cancer

If you take a flash photograph of a child, and one of his or her pupils looks white in the resulting image, it can indicate an eye tumor. In the U.K., a series of ads uses reflective ink to illustrate that warning sign, in the hope of teaching parents how to recognize it.

The ads, located at doctors offices and day care centers, feature kids who actually survived retinoblastoma, a rare but potentially fatal form of eye cancer that in most cases affects infants, toddlers and young children. If you snap a flash picture of the poster, you can see what to watch out for in pictures of your own kids.

Childhood Eye Cancer Trust, aka CHECT, is the nonprofit group behind the campaign. Agency Wunderman created the ads. There’s also an social component—Fast Company has more details on the awareness push, and the production process, which presented a unique challenge.

It’s an incredibly smart, simple use of media, given how many people carry smartphones, and the fact that early detection can save a child’s life or eyesight.



A Little Girl With Cancer Wanted to Make Her Own PSA, and It's Amazing

“I want to be on TV a lot, and I want to be on the newspaper so people can see how brave I’ve been during cancer,” says young Hannah, speaking into a hairbrush microphone as she carefully relates her experience with the disease, in her own words. 

According to the video’s description on YouTube:

Hannah was diagnosed with bilateral Wilms tumor (kidney cancer) in February 2014. She underwent 6 months of chemotherapy, radiation to her lungs and flank and surgery to remove her left kidney and part of her right kidney. Throughout her ordeal, she has always been very matter a fact about the entire situation. She understands what’s going on and knows what’s needed to fix it. She approached us one day and said she wanted to do a “commercial” to explain to other kids what they can expect when going through cancer and show them “how brave” she has been. #teamhannah

“Cancer is no fun—but it’s a little bit fun because you get to go on this camp,” Hannah says. “And if you have cancer, don’t worry, ’cause I am brave, and you can be brave also.”

Take a look below at this inspiring little PSA.



How’d They Do That? Remarkable British Ad Goes in Utero to ‘Film’ an Unborn Baby

If you happened to catch this PSA on television in Britain this month, you might be left wondering if it is—could it somehow possibly be?—real footage. And that's the point.

The spot, from Grey London, shows an unborn baby drifting around inside the womb in what is surely the most real-seeming in-utero footage ever. It is, however, all CGI.

"The craft and technique that Digital Domain and [Radical Media director] Chris Milk put into making the ad was amazing, and the end result looks so brilliantly life-like that we hope people will walk away from it questioning whether it's real or not," says Grey deputy executive creative director Vicki Maguire.

The ad, for the British Heart Foundation, even has the baby do the voiceover (in a child's voice). She talks about how she might inherit a heart condition from her parents.

"I wanted to create a sincere and simple piece of film, forging a deeply emotional connection with a girl who needs saving even before she is born," says Milk, who also made Arcade Fire's stunning interactive experience The Wilderness Downtown. "The story is told in a world that is familiar but still a mystery. She's invited us in because she has something to say. Something vital."

Credits below.

CREDITS
Client: British Heart Foundation
Agency: Grey, London
Creative Director: Vicki Maguire
Copywriter: Clemmie Telford
Art Director: Lex Down
Managing Partner: Sarah Jenkins
Business Director: Eve Bulley
Account Manager: Grant Paterson
Account Executive: Isaac Hickinbottom
Agency Producer: Vanessa Butcher
Creative Producer: Gemma Hose
Planner: Ruth Chadwick
Media Agency: PHD, London
Media Planner: Monica Majumdar
Production Company: @radical Media
Director: Chris Milk
Visual Effects: Digital Domain
Editor: Brian Miller
Producers: Ben Schneider, Sam Storr
Postproduction: Digital Domain
Soundtrack Composer: Vampire Weekend
Audio Postproduction: Grand Central




How a Remarkable Twitter Campaign Got This Ohio Teenager a Bionic Arm

Here's a powerful example of the potential of social media and brand charity.

Friends of an Ohio teenager who was born without a full right arm launched a #HandforTorri campaign on Twitter to get her a prosthesis. The effort led them to contact The Buried Life, the troupe of young guys who built a bucket-list-themed media franchise, including a couple of seasons of an MTV show and a book. They in turn persuaded Hanger Inc., a top manufacturer of prosthetics, to give Torri a $150,000 bionic arm.

It's an amazing story, reminiscent of Matthew James, the British teen and drag racing fan who a few years back convinced Mercedes to gift him a prosthesis. Thankfully, Torri's gift appears to come minus any talk of slapping a car marketer's brand on her new limb.

Check out the video below, and maybe keep a couple tissues handy.

Via BuzzFeed.




Colorado’s Keg-Stand Ad for Obamacare Is Probably the Dumbest in the Nation

Hey, bro … what's a deductible?

The Colorado Consumer Health Initiative and ProgressNow Colorado Education target young adults, including the oft-maligned and frequently wasted "bro" segment, in a series of shareable Web ads that milk the theme "Got insurance?" to promote access to Obromacare Obamacare.

The most outrageous ad in the bunch is "Brosurance," which shows "Rob, Zack and Sam—bros for life," in all their beer-fueled frat-house glory. Copy begins: "Keg stands are crazy. Not having insurance is crazier. Don't tap into your beer money to cover those medical bills. We got it covered." Zach and Sam also appear in an execution headlined "Club Med," which reads, "Yo Mom, do I got insurance? My girlfriend broke my heart, so me and the bros went golfing. Then my buddy broke my head. Good thing my mom made sure I got insurance."

The rest of the campaign is more conventional. One ad shows a very-expectant young woman "about to pop," while others feature a young mom with her daughter, a guy who was injured in a bicycle crash, a kayaker and a mountain climber. All ads use the #GotInsurance hashtag and point to DoYouGotInsurance.com for more information about signing up for Obamacare.

"We were trying to connect with young adults, and we thought, 'What are things that might connect with college-age folks?'" says Adam Fox, director of engagement for Colorado Consumer Health.

Some have blasted the "Brosurance" and "Club Med" ads as offensive, condescending or simply vapid, lamenting the party imagery and grotesque grammar. Others question whether targeting college-age people is wise, since the Affordable Care Act extends dependent coverage to adult children 26 and younger. That latter complaint seems mean-spirited, since not everyone that age has living parents, and even if they do, many young people, for various reasons, must insure themselves.

Moreover, the work is mildly controversial at best, and I think the nation's psyche is strong enough to withstand a little bro-needling for a good cause. The campaign is getting lots of media attention, which was clearly its aim, and hopefully that will lead the target audience to at least think about healthcare, however fleetingly, between rounds of golf and beer.

More shareable "Got insurance?" ads are on the way in coming weeks. And though she's not from Colorado, I'd like to propose Shelby Herring as the ideal spokesperson for this demographic. Having fun … that's her policy!


    

Alberta Gets Gross to Make Germophobes Think Twice About Unprotected Sex

When it comes to sex, Alberta seems to be redefining the phrase "getting freaky." Already home to Canada's highest rate of syphilis, the province is now seeing a rise in gonorrhea, leading health officials to launch an unsettling ad campaign called "Sex Germs."

The concept is that residents who are careful about avoiding germs such as the common cold virus clearly aren't as careful about sexually transmitted diseases. "We seem to have developed good habits in avoiding everyday germs," the campaign site asks, "but what about sex germs?"

Targeted at the 18- to 24-year-old crowd, the ads from agency Calder Bateman feature models sporting a communicable-disease-chic red eye/snot combo with a caption like, "His cold is just one thing you could catch."

This is a follow-up to Alberta's "Plenty of Syph" campaign against syphilis. As an STD awareness campaign, it's a little reminiscent of Trojan's "I got you gonorrhea for your 21st birthday" commercial from 2009 and far less exciting than Toronto's "Attack of the Cursed Syphilis" poster campaign. It's also grosser than this French commercial with guys in STD costumes chasing scantily clad lovers, but way less weird.

Check out the TV spot below and two posters after the jump.

 


    

The World’s Kookiest, Catchiest Anti-Asthma PSAs May Leave You Breathless

Remember the "Chimpanzee Riding on a Segway" song from way back in 2010? How about the theme song from Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the 1990s? Parry Gripp was the songwriter behind the simian parody, and the frontman of onetime geek-rock band Nerf Herder, which created the intro music for the supernatural TV show. Now, he's expanding his offbeat oeuvre into anti-asthma PSAs with a series of songs performed by a group of puppets named The Breathe Easies.

Created with agency The Barbarian Group for the Ad Council, the spots, running on radio and online in English and Spanish, feature titles like "Clean Up the Mold" and "Don't Smoke in the House." The lyrics include gems like, "Don't break my heart with your second-hand smoke"—an Auto-Tuned solo, of course. The bright pastels and tongue-in-cheek presentation—Pee-wee's Playhouse meets Sesame Street—succeed at making sad and gross subject matter less off-putting. And it's hard to blame them for playing the unapologetically cheesy jingle angle, given that the cause would be all but invisible otherwise.

And who doesn't want to spend the rest of the day humming to themselves about vacuuming the floor—especially if the alternative is singing about a cookie or a pickup truck?


    

Coke Wants You to Live Like Grandpa, You Self-Destructive Slob

Your grandpa was a svelte boss. You, by comparison, are a junk-gobbling slob, according to a slick new split-screen ad for Coca-Cola from agency David in Buenos Aires. The spot, part of a larger effort to position Coke as anti-obesity, is meant to compare granddad's modest approach to life with today's steady diet of too much everything: oversized sandwiches, lattes and pre-TV-dinner hot dogs. Don't cut out Coca-Cola, though. Sugar water is cool, so long as you're riding your bike to work and taking the stairs. Because no matter what, it's important to enjoy life, and sugar water—or maybe aspartame water—is clearly the key to happiness. 


    

Chemotherapy Rebranded as ‘Superformula’ in JWT’s Brilliant Campaign for Child Cancer Center

JWT joined with Warner Bros. and the A.C. Camargo Cancer Center in São Paulo, Brazil, to craft a super-powerful campaign designed to help children with cancer better understand their treatment and be less frightened by chemotherapy. The initiative revolves around superheroes. The game room at the hospital is tricked out like the interior of the Justice League, and colorful chemo-bag covers bear the insignia of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern, transforming the oft-scary drugs into a "Superformula." Specially drawn comic books tell medically realistic tales of the Dark Knight and his friends defeating cancer-like diseases to resume their war against evil. Although it uses D.C. Comics characters, this effort is a marvel, helping kids gain knowledge, courage and faith in themselves—the ultimate superpowers. Via Copyranter.

    

Creak, Crack, Crunch. Local Chiropractor’s Goofy Ad Is Painful to Watch

Just a few weeks after making the most awkward transmission-repair ad ever, Rhett & Link are back with another goofy local commercial—this one for the Ryan Lee Chiropractic Center in Los Angeles. It stars the eponymous practitioner, who twists, turns and otherwise contorts the bodies of his patients until their skeletons emit rather sickening crunching sounds. It only gets worse as the ad goes on. The tagline is "Gentle. Comfortable. Professional"—although if that's true, it's not totally clear what's going on at 0:41.

    

Heartbreaking Hospital Ad Celebrates Too-Brief Life of One of Its Most Inspiring Patients

New York Presbyterian Hospital and ad agency Munn Rabôt recently made this video celebrating the life of Danion Jones, who was 3 years old when he was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. NYPH treated him until his death at age 7, and the video isn't an ad so much as a promise to find new and better ways to help kids like Danion. It's hard to use kids in videos like this without looking schmaltzy and insincere. But you're made of stone if you don't get a little misty watching Danion, who got to perform at the Apollo Theater before his death, sing "When You're Smiling."

Debi Austin, Star of Infamous Anti-Smoking Ad, Is Dead at 62

Debi Austin, better known as the lady who smoked a cigarette through a tracheotomy hole in her neck in the infamous "Voicebox" anti-smoking ad, died Feb. 22 after a 20-year battle with cancer. She was 62. The California Department of Public Health released a statement about Debi on its website in which CDPH director Dr. Ron Chapman applauded her for showing "tremendous courage by sharing her story to educate Californians on the dangers of smoking." He's absolutely right about that. The "Voicebox" ad, from 1996, is a good example of how advertising can use real people's stories for the greater good, and without exploiting them. More to the point, Debi was brave for putting what many would call a weakness or personal failing to work as a public service, and for doing so with dignity and poise. She would also become a powerful anti-smoking advocate, and made two ads more recently—see those after the jump. May she rest in peace.

Watch the PSA That Shocked Some Celebrities, and Will Shock You Too

If you don't plan on eating for a while, check out the video below from the End7 project, dedicated to ending some truly terrifying infections known as "neglected tropical diseases." The clip, called "How to Shock a Celebrity," created by Wunderman U.K., begins by showing you the reactions of several actors and musicians watching footage of tropical-disease sufferers, which you are then able to watch yourself. Admittedly, the term "celebrity" is used a bit loosely here, since few of the featured talents are household names (in America, at least). The term "truly terrifying" is not used loosely. The video is compelling, emotional and deeply troubling. Check it out, and then read more about the celebrities and diseases featured in it after the jump. Hat tip to my friend Suzanne for sharing this on Facebook.

Celebrities featured:
• Emily Blunt (Sara in Looper, Emily in The Devil Wears Prada)
• Eddie Redmayne (Marius in Les Misérables)
• Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter series)
• Yvonne Chaka Chaka (South African pop star)
• Tom Hollander (King George III in HBO's John Adams and Cutler Beckett in the last two Pirates of the Caribbean movies)
• Priyanka Chopra (leading Bollywood actress and international recording artist)

Diseases featured:
• Elephantiasis
• Roundworm
• Hookworm
• Whipworm
• Trachoma
• River Blindness
• Snail Fever

Sneezing in ultra-slow motion

Campaign by the australian government against influenza spreading.

EEEEEW!